Custom 'Recovery' Options

I am a big fan of Imaging software,which can restore your machine in less than an hour to a pristine state..as long as you have an Image done while it is pristine. Paragaon and Macrium both have free versions that work well. Both programs can backup to CD/DVD, external USB HDD (my preference) or network drive. Each app lets you burn a boot cd to boot from and restore an image even when your machine will not boot into Windows. Can even be used to install a new hdd_boot from the cd, choose the Image and you have complete install of Windows & your other software,data files,etc.